Opener: Read Those Winter Sundays. Look at Its Structure Stanzas? Does It Rhyme?

Aim: How are “Those Winter Sundays” and “My Papa’s Waltz” similar and different?

Opener: Read “Those Winter Sundays.” Look at its structure--- stanzas? Does it rhyme?

Motivation: Someone read a loud.

Activity: Discuss structure compared to Papa’s Waltz. Make circles on board for students to copy on page 21 . Read over “My Papa’s Waltz” again. Compare them and list similarities and differences.

Papa’s Waltz Those Winter Sundays

4 stanzas 3 stanzas

Rhyme scheme free verse

Narrator --- adult looking back--------------------------------------------------à

Just a nice memory a regret

Nostalgic tone sad tone

Read page 59 “Incident.”

Medial Summary: How is this poem similar to the other 2?

Activity: Do questions.

Final Summary: What experiences have you had that you think might mean more to you as you get older? List on page 7 of packet Title it---- “Memories”

Homework: Read the poem “The Road Not Taken” on page 24. Do questions 1-7

My Papa's Waltz
by Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

1. About how old is the boy in the poem? How do you know?

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2. Think about the feelings of the three people during this incident. Write the line numbers that prove your answer.

a. How did the boy feel? ______________________________________________

b. How does the father feel? ____________________________________________

c. How does the mother feel? ___________________________________________

3. Should the mother have interfered with the waltz? Explain.

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4. What does the poem describe? Looking back at this memory, is it a happy one or a sad one for the speaker? Explain.

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Rewrite the poem changing the voice. Don’t worry about rhyming and meter, just focus on changing the tone (25 points). You can write it as a paragraph if you find it too difficult to write as a poem (20 points). Just change the tone.

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up earlyAnd put his clothes on in the blueback cold,then with cracked hands that achedfrom labor in the weekday weather madebanked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.When the rooms were warm, he'd call,and slowly I would rise and dress,fearing the chronic angers of that house,Speaking indifferently to him,who had driven out the coldand polished my good shoes as well.What did I know, what did I knowof love's austere and lonely offices? (severe in manner or appearance; uncompromising; strict; forbidding)

(without excess, luxury, or ease;

simple; limited; severe)Robert Hayden

1. What does the speaker realize about the sacrifices his father made for him?

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2. What connection can you make between “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Those Winter Sundays?”

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Use the following Venn Diagram to show the similarities and differences between “ My Papa’s Waltz” and “Thos Winter Sundays”

Those Winter Sundays My Papa’s Waltz

Think about--- tone, message, speaker, rhyme scheme, other literary techniques, and how you feel about each poem.

Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

1. How many stanzas are there? _________

2. What is the rhyme scheme? ________________________________

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3. How many syllables are in each line?____________________________

4. What might the two roads represent?____________________________

5. Why does the speaker choose one road over the other? ________________

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6. What does the speaker hope for? ________________________________

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7. What is the poem’s overall message? ______________________________

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